South Side Bulletin February 2016
Professional Learning Opportunities For Educators On The Go
When Behavior Charts Don't Work, Throw Them Out!
Does this sound familiar? You have a student in your class who constantly has issues with something. Maybe it’s calling out, maybe it’s staying on task, or maybe it’s disturbing other students. You start each day with the hopes that today will be the day that the classroom expectations sink in, but alas, he has that same difficulty again. You give a reminder or verbal warning – maybe you even give two – but then, once again, that student repeats the behavior and heads over to turn his card/change his clip/move his button. Does it work? Has your student lost the desire to play with her eraser now that she is looking at her name on the “Stop and Think” section of the behavior chart? My guess is no.
How Student-Centered Is Your Classroom?
3 Ways to Plan For Diverse Learners: What Teachers Do
In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and crew are so intimidated by the Wizard's enigmatic personality that they struggle to talk with him on equal footing. Fear and frustration overwhelm them as they blindly accept a suicide mission to slay the Witch of the West. In return, they each receive a treasured prize: a heart, a brain, courage, and a way home. Ironically, they already have these gifts -- which they only discover after unveiling the man behind the curtain posing as the grumpy wizard.
Differentiated instruction (DI) casts a spell on educators as to how it meets all students' needs. The skillset required to differentiate seems mystical to some and incomprehensible to others in this environment of state standards and high-stakes tests. Where does one find the time? The reality is that every teacher already has the tools to differentiate in powerful ways for all learners.